


Mother Hen

by Asidian



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Chocobos, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Injury, Pets, Pictures, Protectiveness, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 13:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11037540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asidian/pseuds/Asidian
Summary: It's not like they've never left their chocobos behind in favor of having a night in a real, honest-to-gods bed before.It's just that, well. Prompto's chocobo's been pretty touchy-feely lately. Lots of nuzzling, lots of preening his hair. That one day he fell asleep curled up against her side, he woke up in the middle of the night to find she'd tucked a wing over him, warm and downy-soft. It had been kind of nice, actually. Musty and decidedly bird-scented, but nice.





	Mother Hen

**Author's Note:**

> For the lovely anon on the kink meme who wanted:
> 
> So we all know that Prompto loves chocobos but what if Prompto's chocobo becomes very protective of her rider? 
> 
> The bird starts to peck Gladio whenever he teases Prompto. She hisses whenever someone tries to invade Prompto's space. She curls up around him after a particularly hard fight - only letting the bros near when she's certain they won't harm her rider. Just a lot of cute protective Chocobo fluff. 
> 
> +the chocobo likes to groom Prompto's hair  
> ++Noct is low key jealous of the bird

 "Dude," says Prompto, face approximately as hot as the lava on the mountain they just climbed down. "Come on. It was only funny the first seventeen times."  
  
"Still funny," says Gladio – and hell if he doesn't have his most shit-eating grin on, the one that means he's not going to let this drop for a hundred thousand years. When they're all dead and gone, Gladio's ghost will live on, telling the tale of Prompto's humiliation, and Prompto will float around in his wake, rattling his chains and wailing for him to stop.  
  
"Noct," says Prompto, a little desperate. "Buddy. Help me out here."  
  
But Noct's got on the kind of crooked smile that means he's trying his damnedest not to laugh, and he says, "Sorry, Prom. Still funny."  
  
"Iggy?" says Prompto, hopefully.  
  
Ignis adjusts his glasses. "Perhaps next time," he says, voice utterly devoid of sympathy, "you'll have more foresight when choosing your photo opportunities."  
  
And okay, yeah. Maybe he deserves that. 

  
Probably he deserves that.  
  
How can he not, when this afternoon played out like a lost-your-clothes-in-school nightmare for adults?  
  
It was almost too good to be true: the perfect photo spot, on the perfect ledge of Mt. Ravatogh, with the perfect view of everything ever. And okay, maybe he happened to slip away without telling anyone. And maybe the walkway between the two sheets of rock just so happened to be a bit more narrow than he was counting on. And maybe by the time he was halfway in, he kind of sort of realized he couldn't get out. Or further in. Or do anything, really, except fumble his phone out of his pocket, with great difficulty, and text Noct: "help :("  
  
So back they came, the three worst people in the whole of Eos, and when he handed his camera out, carefully, to get it out of the way, the very first thing Gladio did was take a picture. So now he's got a shot on his camera of him wedged in between two slabs of rocks, and another one of Noct and Iggy trying to yank him out, and – to top it all off – he never did manage to make it out to the ledge to get that landscape.  
  
Five hours later, even the thought of it makes Prompto go what he's sure is a ripe tomato red. Every time someone brings it up, his neck goes hot, and his face burns, and he wonders whether it's feasible to hurl himself into the path of the next blizzaga spell Noct casts and put an end to his own suffering.  
  
He's still pondering when they rein in their chocobos for the night next to the rocky outcrop of the haven. He's still pondering while he digs out the dishes and cutlery for Iggy. But by the time they chat their way through dinner and he's lounging against the dusky red-orange dyed feathers of his chocobo's back, he's mostly forgotten – right up until Gladio says, "Hey, we gonna look at your pictures from today?"  
  
Prompto laughs, even though the blush thunders back full-force. "Think a couple might not be up to my usual standards." He flips the camera on – pages through, looking for the shots Gladio took.  
  
"Wait a sec," says Gladio, circling around to lean over him. He gives the back of Prompto's head a shove, playful, the way he does when he's teasing. "You better not delete those. They're damn near masterpieces."  
  
Prompto twists sideways, holding the camera out of his reach. "My camera," he says. "My call. I've got artistic license." And he sticks his tongue out.  
  
"Children," sighs Ignis, sounding every bit as long-suffering as a preschool teacher wrangling seventeen two-years-olds. "Honestly."  
  
"I'll give you artistic license," says Gladio. He starts to shove at Prompto again, but there's a sharp clicking sound from somewhere nearby. Gladio says "Whoa," kind of startled, and wheels back a step.  
  
"Kweh," says Prompto's chocobo, and Prompto looks up just in time to see her snapping her beak at Gladio, vaguely threatening, feathers pressed down sleek and no-nonsense.  
  
"Would you look at that?" says Noct, blandly amused. "Someone's got a bodyguard."

 

* * *

 

Lestallum's a great city.  
  
It's got meat skewers for days, all of which burn Prompto's mouth in new and exciting flavors of spicy. It's got street vendors who sell fried cinnamon dough sticks that crunch and melt when you bite into them. It's got a market that stretches on for a whole city block – a market that makes Iggy's eyes light up like he's a kid and school's out for summer.  
  
The one thing it doesn't have is a chocobo stable. Which yeah, sure, business as usual – the birds are used to wandering around when they're not on call. Wiz told them the first time they rented, even: if there's anywhere the birds won't go, don't feel shy about leaving them behind for a spell. They know how to forage well enough on their own.  
  
And it's not like they've never left their chocobos behind in favor of having a night in a real, honest-to-gods bed before.  
  
It's just that, well. Prompto's chocobo's been pretty touchy-feely lately. Lots of nuzzling, lots of preening his hair. That one day he fell asleep curled up against her side, he woke up in the middle of the night to find she'd tucked a wing over him, warm and downy-soft. It had been kind of nice, actually. Musty and decidedly bird-scented, but nice.  
  
"You think she misses me?" says Prompto, biting into his second cinnamon stick in as many hours.  
  
Noct gives him a sidelong glance, still chewing his own mouthful. "Who, Iris?" he says, and – okay, yeah, in retrospect, not an unreasonable assumption. They parted ways with Iris maybe two hours ago, so she's the most logical option around. But then Noct's saying, "Don't tell me you're crushing on Gladio's little sister," and Prompto makes a sputtering noise and sprays cinnamon all over the sidewalk.  
  
"What?" says Prompto. "No!" His face is burning up, but Noct, insufferable jerk that he is, just snorts a laugh.   
  
"Okay," says Prompto, waving his cinnamon stick Noct's way. "For one, she's like twelve. And for two, Gladio would break every bone in my body."  
  
"Fifteen," Noct corrects idly. He doesn't fight the second part, probably because he knows damn well that the best way to begin a new life as a flan, boneless and floppy and in terrible pain, would be to hit on Gladio's little sister.   
  
"Fine," says Prompto. "Fifteen, whatever. Still way too young. And still not her."  
  
Noct fixes him with a look that's blandly curious. "Who's the lucky girl this time?"  
  
"Not a girl," says Prompto. "My chocobo."  
  
Up ahead, the Leville looms like the promise of paradise: stucco walls and a spraying fountain. Inside, there's blessed AC, and Prompto is going to dive onto the bed and roll around in the blankets, and not even Iggy's patented really-Prompto-let's-grow-up look will stop him.  
  
"Seriously?" asks Noct. "We've got a whole night of civilization and you're worried about your bird?"  
  
Prompto laughs a little – ducks his head, embarrassed. "I just don't want her to be lonely, is all." He crams the rest of his cinnamon stick into his mouth, to keep from having to say anything else.  
  
"She's fine," Noct says, and the eye-roll is practically audible in his voice. "This is probably the bird equivalent of a spa stay, okay? Two whole days with no riders, free to wander around and do –" He waves one hand, vaguely. "– whatever they do when we're not around."  
  
Prompto swallows the rest of his snack. "Yeah," he says, reluctantly. "I guess."  
  
They step into the lobby of the Leville, and instantly the temperature is fifteen degrees cooler. Prompto's on the verge of composing some kind of ode to the wonders of air conditioning when Noct pokes him in the ribs and it's abandoned in favor of an undignified yelp.   
  
"Dude!" says Prompto. "What was that for?"  
  
Noct pops the last piece of his own cinnamon stick in his mouth, chews thoughtfully, and says, "Nothing."  
  
They're at the door to their hotel room already: mottled teal, kind of pretty, just like the rest of the décor. "Sure didn't feel like nothing," says Prompto. "You got something you wanna spit out?"  
  
If Noct does, he never gets the chance to say. The door swings wide, and the sight that greets them makes Prompto forget absolutely every thought in his mind. Because there, napping on the floor under the open window that she undoubtedly came through, is Prompto's chocobo. She's curled into a ball, legs tucked under, beak burrowed in the fluff of her back – but she looks up at the sound of them, with a sleepy little "Kweh?"  
  
"What the –" says Prompto.  
  
That's as far as he gets. The rest is swept away as five and a half feet of bird comes barreling his way, flapping her wings and doing a happy chocobo dance that just so happens to squish him up against the television stand. The chocobo lowers her beak and starts to preen his hair, probably more vigorously than is strictly necessary.  
  
"Would you look at that," Noct remarks, voice bright with suppressed laughter. "She  _was_  lonely."  
  
"Noct," calls Prompto, plaintive, from his feathery prison. "Help."  
  
"Sure, in a sec," says Noctis, king of Lucis and certifiably the world's worst best friend. "Lemme just find your camera first."

 

* * *

  
  
Prompto stares down at his plate.  
  
The toast stares back up at him.   
  
It's not like he has anything against toast. Toast is awesome. Toast is one of maybe five things he can make reliably without burning it. Prompto made a lot of toast for himself, growing up.  
  
And as far as toast goes, this is the pinnacle of toast perfection. It's a lovely golden-brown, with a little bit of butter. It practically glistens in the firelight, food magazine picturesque.  
  
Only, there's just the one slice of it. He's kind of jealous of the chocobos, bent over their absolute pile of greens and pecking busily away.  
  
"C'mon Specs," says Noct. "You're killing us here." He holds up his equally lonely slice of toast and waves it back and forth.  
  
"I mean, it looks great," Prompto puts in. "But no way is this gonna hold us till tomorrow."  
  
"We'll all survive just fine," says Ignis, a touch exasperated. "It's barely an hour to Cauthess from here. Come morning, we'll make the rest of the trip, and I'll buy ham to make croque madams for breakfast."  
  
Prompto's stomach gives an excited gurgle at the prospect.  
  
Nearby, Gladio's already starting to poke through the pack, though. "So we've got eggs already, right? Scramble some up. We don't have to have five-star dinners every night, y'know."  
  
"We have two eggs," says Ignis primly. "And we have exactly enough in the budget to buy two more and the ham tomorrow."  
  
"Oh," says Gladio, and stops rummaging.  
  
"What about those sweet peppers we picked the other day?" says Prompto, still kind of hopeful. "We could have pepper toast or something."  
  
Gladio and Ignis – and okay, even Noct – are giving him a weird look, but pepper toast is totally legit. Prompto's put a lot of things on toast. New toppings are a good way to change things up when it's toast for dinner five nights in a row and just looking at it again kind of makes you want to gag. Plus, there's an added bonus: putting something on top of lightly-cooked bread is a great way to not burn down the kitchen.  
  
Ignis fixes him with a level stare. "We are not eating pepper toast," he says, like Prompto suggested someone steal his glasses and melt them down for scrap metal. "Besides which, we finished them in the soup the other day."  
  
There's a moment of glum silence as they all consider their dinner.   
  
"Well," Noct says, and lifts his toast. "Bottoms up."  
  
It crunches when he bites into it, and Prompto shrugs, lifts his own, and follows suit. He's only taken a bite when he realizes his chocobo has padded over to press her head against his shoulder, pushy and affectionate both at once.  
  
"Sorry, girl," says Prompto. "Nothing you'll like today."  
  
He holds up the toast for her to inspect anyway; she steals his veggies with endearing regularity, but she's not big on bread or meat. When he turns to look, though, he discovers that she's not here for a handout, after all. Her beak's already full of greens, and she looks way too pleased with herself when she lets them drop onto the empty plate.  
  
"Kweh," says Prompto's chocobo.  
  
Prompto looks at the bird. He looks at the greens.  
  
He reaches out, grinning, to scritch her head. "Aww," he says. "Who's a good girl? You're just a big fluffy sweetheart."  
  
She curls up next to him, all downy warmth, and Prompto puts the gysahl greens on his toast. Then he gets back to dinner.  
  
He's two bites in before he realizes Noct's staring at him, sidelong and a little smug.   
  
"Not gonna say a word," says Noct, breaking that promise by virtue of the fact that he is, in fact, already saying a word. "Next time you make fun of me putting ketchup on my salmon at the Crow's Nest, though, you better believe you're never gonna hear the end of it."

 

* * *

 

Prompto's got a running list of things this trip's made him hate.  
  
Bugs are right up at the top, creepy crawly things with too many legs, the surface of them revoltingly shiny. Caves get an honorable mention – damp, and cold, and way too damn tight, pressing in on every side.  
  
Snakes, Prompto thinks, staring up at the monster that towers fifty feet above him. Snakes are a new one.  
  
But he gets his gun out, and he makes space for a new entry on his things-to-hate list. He pats his chocobo reassuringly on the neck, and he says, "You better stay out of this one, girl." Then he charges into battle. Because fighting a fifty foot snake is what they're doing today, apparently.  
  
"Not like I don't love death matches with the local wildlife," says Prompto, as he squeezes off his first shot, "but couldn't we have gone around this thing?"  
  
"Snake this size, and you think there's room to sneak past it?" says Noct.  
  
Ignis hums in consideration as his daggers flicker into view in his hands. "It may have been possible," he determines after moment. "Though likely not easy."  
  
"You see?" says Prompto. He's trying for upbeat, but it's probably drowning under a few dozen gallons of impending panic. "You never know till you try."  
  
"So try shooting," Gladio growls. "Those guns ain't just for show." Then he launches himself at the thing, casual and confident, making it look like he's had fifty-foot snakes for pets since he was eight years old, and this is just part of your regular everyday snake grooming –  no big deal, business as usual, no gruesome and imminent death to worry about.  
  
Noct's moving, too, now. He blinks out in a shimmering cascade of magic, to reappear near the snake's head and start in on a whirlwind series of attacks. Prompto stares, horrified, feet frozen to the ground. He's getting vertigo just watching.  
  
But Noct's right up in kissing range with fangs that look bigger than his whole forearm, and Iggy and Gladio – they're good, but that thing's _tall_. They're not gonna be able to reach. So when those teeth come snapping in, Prompto sights and pulls the trigger. One of the snake's eyes explode in a mess of goo that probably would have made him puke all over himself at the start of this road trip.  
  
Now it makes him crow in delight. "Dude," he calls out. "If we were playing that zombie game at the arcade, that would've been a fifty-point shot!"  
  
Noct reappears on the ground in a flash of blue, slanted smile on his lips. "If we were in the arcade, it'd be a zombie snake, and then we'd really be in trouble."  
  
"We're gonna be in trouble anyway," Gladio puts in, "if you two clowns don't stop dicking around."  
  
He's right; they _are_ in trouble. It's got nothing to do with dicking around, though. It's got to do with one very large, very angry snake who probably didn't enjoy having its eye shot out.  
  
The creature rears back like some strange, serpentine avenging god, all glistening scales and sinuous muscle. Its mouth looks like the impending apocalypse; its teeth are on full display, wickedly sharp and entirely too long.  
  
Prompto thinks getting bitten by those things is about the worst prospect he's faced since they left Insomnia, and that's saying a lot.  
  
He keeps thinking it right up until the snake begins to spit, a fine spray of reeking green liquid, and then abruptly he knows he's found something worse.  
  
"Take cover!" Ignis calls, way too late to be any help.  
  
Everywhere the liquid touches, it _burns_. Prompto yelps, and then outright screams, staggering back a few steps to try and get out of range. His boots find uneven rock – and then, abruptly, open air.  
  
Oh, he thinks, distantly. That's right. The river bank was there.  
  
Then he goes down, into rushing water, and cracks his head on a rock. And for a while, he thinks nothing at all.

 

* * *

  
  
Everything hurts.  
  
Not in a down-with-the-flu-better-stay-home-from-school-today kind of way. Not even in an okay-wow-maybe-trying-to-walk-on-that-ankle-you-sprained-running-is-a-bad-idea kind of way.  
  
More in a did-I-somehow-bathe-my-face-in-acid-and-forget-about-it kind of way.   
  
Prompto's legs aren't moving. He can feel them, but he kind of wishes he couldn't.  
  
"Noct?" he tries to say. What comes out instead is a low groan that sounds about as good as he feels, which is, yeah, pretty pathetic about now.  
  
Noct doesn't answer.  
  
But a soft "kweh" beside him makes him look up to see his chocobo lying there, curled up next to him. Probably explains why only part of him is half-frozen from the icy river water, come to think of it. Chocobo down is pretty warm.  
  
Prompto closes his eyes. "Hey, girl," he says.  
  
The bird responds by ducking her face in, very gently, and preening his hair. The world gets swimmy and kind of weird after that, waves of dizziness that come and go.  
  
The beak in his hair stirs up a memory, lodged somewhere in the back of his mind: a much younger Prompto, maybe six years old, lies stretched out on the couch with his head on his adoptive mother's lap. She's only home from her business trip for a day, but she's spent most of it sitting with him, stroking his hair while he watches cartoons.  

She's hardly ever around, anymore. The attention – her _being_ there – feels like the best thing in the world.  
  
"If you want," he tells the chocobo, vaguely, words a little slurred like he's had too much to drink, "you can change the channel."  
  
She makes a soft, concerned sort of sound. It's the last thing Prompto hears before unconsciousness drags him back under.

 

* * *

  
  
When he wakes again it's night, and something about that should scare him.  
  
But everything's kind of throbbing in time with his heartbeat, and the pain makes him want to puke, and he's shaking with the cold. To top it all off, there's something heavy on top of him.  
  
"Get off," he tries to say.  
  
"Kweh," says his chocobo, very quietly.  
  
Prompto slits his eyes open. Across the river, he sees the ghostly purple light of thunder bombs, and a chill runs through him that has nothing to do with the icy air of the night or his still-damp clothes.  
  
The bird fluffs her feathers up and stretches her neck out over the top of him – hiding him from view, he realizes, as best she's able.  
  
"Good girl," Prompto whispers, and strokes her with a trembling hand. "What a good girl."

 

* * *

  
  
The next time he wakes up, it's to a very loud, very incessant trilling kind of squawk. The sun's in his eyes, and the noise is right in his ears, and gods, Prompto's starting to hope he'll just hurry up and die already.  
  
"Shh," he says, and tries to swat at his chocobo, who's making what is decidedly the worst noise ever. His hand misses, and all he ends up with is an off-centered and decidedly ineffectual sort of pat.  
  
Then something _else_ starts in with the same noise, a ways in the distance, and Prompto groans. "Look what you did," he says, plaintive, but the chocobo just keeps right on, loud as he's ever heard her.  
  
She keeps it up for five minutes straight, until his head's pounding, and the echo keeps getting louder and louder.  
  
Then Ignis' voice says, "He's here."  
  
Gladio grunts. "Looking kind of rough, too."  
  
He must be pretty far gone, Prompto figures, if he's hallucinating.   
  
Above him, his chocobo hisses and makes a strange trilling sound. There's a sharp click that Prompto recognizes as the noise her beak makes.  
  
"We're not gonna hurt him," says Noct, sounding a little desperate. For a moment, there's no response – and then almost reluctantly, the feathery bulk pressed up against him shifts away.  
  
"What?" slurs Prompto. "No. Wait – s'cold."  
  
But the chocobo doesn't settle down again. Instead, Noct appears in front of him, face paper-pale with worry. "Gods, Prompto," he says, softly. "We were looking all night. I thought for sure –"  
  
He cuts himself off. Swallows. Says: "It's okay. We've got you." Something presses against Prompto's lips. "Here, drink this."  
  
It feels remarkably real. Noct looks remarkably real. The cobwebs in Prompto's head start to clear, and he manages to scrape together a faintly surprised conclusion that maybe this isn't a hallucination, after all.  
  
Prompto tries to swallow – coughs, and gets some tingling liquid all down his neck.   
  
Everywhere it touches, the pain washes away, and some part of him must realize what's in the bottle, because he gulps it down like he's trying to set the record for fastest curative ever consumed.  
  
The elixir rushes through him like – like something pretty damn amazing you can't find the words for while you're lying half-dead on the bank of a river after having a snake spray acid all over you. By the time he has the last of it down, he almost feels human again.  
  
"Ow," says Prompto, eloquently.  
  
Noct's fingers touch searchingly at a spot on his cheekbone, and Prompto hisses and jerks away.   
  
Noct says, "Gimme another one, Specs."  
  
A second more, and Noct's pressing another bottle to his lips. Prompto downs it without hesitation, letting the clean, cool wash of healing magic race through him.  
  
Then he just kind of lies there, stretched out flat, half drunk with how good it feels for nothing to hurt. He should probably be embarrassed he's in his best friend's lap, like they're doing a tragic death scene from some fantasy movie, but he can wait on that.  
  
"Prompto?" says Noct, after a beat of silence.  
  
"I'm good," says Prompto. "Just kinda. Taking five."  
  
"You can take more than that, if you need to," says Ignis, tone smooth and even. "There's a haven not far from here."  
  
Walking sounds like the worst idea ever. Prompto says, "How bout we camp by the water tonight? Nice view. Thunder bombs are kind of pretty in the dark."  
  
"Think we'll take a rain check on that one," says Gladio. He's kneeling down, now – gets one arm under Prompto's shoulders, and one under his knees, and lifts. Prompto goes up with him, like he weighs nothing at all.  
  
"Kweh," says Prompto's chocobo, urgently.   
  
"Yeah," Noct tells her, running calming fingers through her feathers. "You did good."  
  
Then Gladio sets him on the bird's back, and he slumps forward until his face is pressed up against her neck. The smell's musty and too strong, but also kind of nice. It reminds him of a warm weight beside him, steady and sure.  
  
There's a considering silence, and then Ignis says, "The strain must be taking its toll. Would you like the honors, Noct? I believe you're the lightest."  
  
Before Prompto can ask what he's talking about, Noct says, "Okay, Prom. Scoot over."  
  
Then Noct's swinging up to ride double with him, getting an arm around his waist. When he sinks backward, his head comes to rest on Noct's shoulder, and his feet dangle against the chocobo's feathery side.  
  
"We'll be there in just a few," says Noct. "Don't worry."  
  
Prompto's not worrying. He's busy trying to keep his eyes open, but that doesn't last for long. It's less than a minute later when they finally slip closed.  
  
The thought that he might fall never so much as crosses his mind.

 

* * *

  
  
When he wakes again, it's night, but not the terror-inducing, riverbank-of-death kind of night.   
  
It's the wrapped-in-his-sleeping-bag, something-warm-and-feathery-soft-pressed-up-against-him, firelight-filtering-secondhand-through-the-tent kind of night. He groans and shifts – realizes that all the extra weight pressing him down is five and a half feet of bird, curled up on top of him.  
  
His chocobo's sleeping, head tucked into her wing. In front of her on a plate is a veritable pile of sylkis greens, and three carrots, and a half-eaten apple.  
  
Outside the walls of the tent, he can hear low voices talking together. Dinner smells like it's almost certainly peppery daggerquill rice, and his stomach gurgles in interest. Almost, it's enough to make him venture out to go hunt up some food.  
  
But the bird pressed up against him's had a long couple of days. It'd be a shame to wake her.  
  
So Prompto just threads his fingers through the downy feathers on her neck and scritches, gently.   
  
He always knew he had the best chocobo in the world. He's just gonna have to spoil her extra from here on out – that's all.


End file.
